How Do You Play "Chess Titans"?

Play "Chess Titans" by observing the modern rules of chess. The aim of the game is to capture the enemy king. "Chess Titans" is a free application that comes preinstalled with Windows Vista and 7.

Chess pits two players, one with white pieces and one with black pieces, against each other. Both players begin with 16 pieces lined up in two rows. While the front row consists of pawns, the back row has a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops and two knights. Each type of piece has a unique way to move around the board.

Click a piece, and then click a square to move the piece to that square. The game highlights the squares a selected piece can move to. Moving a piece to a square with a rival piece on it captures the rival piece, removing it from the game. Each square can only contain one piece.

The king can move one square in any direction. It's the weakest but also the most important piece in the game, as losing the king causes a player to lose the game. The most powerful piece in the game, the queen, can move an unlimited number of squares in any direction. Rooks can also move an unlimited number of squares, but they can only move forward, backwards and sideways. The bishops are similar to the rooks, but they can only move diagonally.

The pawns can advance by two squares on their first move and one square on every subsequent move. They can only move forward, but they capture rival pieces diagonally. The knights must draw an L shape when moving: two steps in one direction, then one step in a perpendicular direction.

Advancing a pawn to the other end of the board enables players to promote it to a rook, a knight, a bishop or a queen. Promoting to queen is generally the best strategy.